Dekalb County GaArchives Biographies.....Chivers, Thomas 1806 - 1858
************************************************
Copyright.  All rights reserved.
http://www.usgwarchives.net/copyright.htm
http://www.usgwarchives.net/ga/gafiles.htm
************************************************

File contributed for use in USGenWeb Archives by:
Debra Wilson jdrwilson@mindspring.com November 15, 2008, 9:30 pm

Author: Mildred Lewis Rutherford

Thomas Holley Chivers, a Georgia poet, was born in Wilikes county in 1806. He 
was graduated by private tutors in his father's family, then was sent to Yale 
to complete his studies. After graduation there he studied medicine, and 
received his diploma, although he did not become a practicing physician, 
because he was a man of large means and felt little the necessity to work for 
the money it would bring.

While at Yale he met the young lady who afterwards became his wife. He went to 
New York to begin his literary career. His poems "Fiat Justitia" and "To 
Allegra Florence in Heaven" appeared as early as 1839, and in 1842 his first 
volume, "The Lost Pleiad and Other Poems" (which included these two poems) was 
published. While in New York Dr. Chivers met Edgar Allan Poe and the two 
became warm personal friends.

There is a sad note, as Poe said, in all that Sr. Chivers wrote, but there was 
a reason for it, because it came from a sad heart. His first six children one 
after the other were taken from him by death.

Dr. Chivers died in 1858 at his home, "Villa Allegra," in Decatur, Georgia.

Additional Comments:
Source: The South in History and Literature: A Hand-book of Southern Authors, 
from the Settlement of Jamestown, 1607, to Living Writers
By Mildred Lewis Rutherford
Published by The Franklin-Turner company, 1906


File at: http://files.usgwarchives.net/ga/dekalb/bios/chivers971gbs.txt

This file has been created by a form at http://www.genrecords.org/gafiles/

File size: 1.9 Kb